Hurricane Florence's winds slap Carolina coast, flooding threat looms

Hurricane Florence's winds began whipping coastal North Carolina on Thursday. Florence's maximum sustained winds were clocked at 105 miles per hour after it was downgraded to a Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The winds had been as high as 140 mph earlier in the week.

The center of Florence is expected to hit North Carolina's southern coast on Friday, then drift southwest before moving inland on Saturday, enough time to drop as much as 40 inches of rain in places, according to the NHC. More than 1 million people had been ordered to evacuate the coasts of the Carolinas and Virginia and thousands moved to emergency shelters, officials said.